“I’ll try not to,” replied Lucy dutifully.  “All the same, I wish she had not told me her dream,” and she shivered.

CHAPTER II

PROFESSOR BRADDOCK

There was only one really palatial mansion in Gartley, and that was the ancient Georgian house known as the Pyramids.  Lucy’s step-father had given the place this eccentric name on taking up his abode there some ten years previously.  Before that time the dwelling had been occupied by the Lord of the Manor and his family.  But now the old squire was dead, and his impecunious children were scattered to the four quarters of the globe in search of money with which to rebuild their ruined fortunes.  As the village was somewhat isolated and rather unhealthily situated in a marshy country, the huge, roomy old Grange had not been easy to let, and had proved quite impossible to sell.  Under these disastrous circumstances, Professor Braddock—­who described himself humorously as a scientific pauper—­had obtained the tenancy at a ridiculously low rental, much to his satisfaction.

Many people would have paid money to avoid exile in these damp waste lands, which, as it were, fringed civilization, but their loneliness and desolation suited the Professor exactly.  He required ample room for his Egyptian collection, with plenty of time to decipher hieroglyphics and study perished dynasties of the Nile Valley.  The world of the present day did not interest Braddock in the least.  He lived almost continuously on that portion of the mental plane which had to do with the far-distant past, and only concerned himself with physical existence, when it consisted of mummies and mystic beetles, sepulchral ornaments, pictured documents, hawk-headed deities and suchlike things of almost inconceivable antiquity.  He rarely walked abroad and was invariably late for meals, save when he missed any particular one altogether, which happened frequently.  Absent-minded in conversation, untidy in dress, unpractical in business, dreamy in manner, Professor Braddock lived solely for archaeology.  That such a man should have taken to himself a wife was mystery.

Yet he had been married fifteen years before to a widow, who possessed a limited income and one small child.  It was the opportunity of securing the use of a steady income which had decoyed Braddock into the matrimonial snare of Mrs. Kendal.  To put it plainly, he had married the agreeable widow for her money, although he could scarcely be called a fortune-hunter.  Like Eugene Aram, he desired cash to assist learning, and as that scholar had committed murder to secure what he wanted, so did the Professor marry to obtain his ends.  These were to have someone to manage the house, and to be set free from the necessity of earning his bread, so that he might indulge in pursuits more pleasurable than money-making.  Mrs. Kendal was a placid, phlegmatic lady, who liked